Confucianism
There's a bit to say about confucianism, (Also called Ruism) that is relevant to the games, though not very much. An important thing to note is that it blurs the line between religion and philosophy. Confucius did not claim to be a prophet directly (kind of) or to add very much religious elements. Nonetheless it adds a few and is built on the assumption that chinese culture and cultural religion in general were for the most part true. Confucianism tones down the religious elements enough that in the 1700s knowledge of it came to the west and inspired parts of the western deistic movement. Because they saw it about abstractly noting that the divine existed, but building everyday life in a way that does not focus on it, but rather on practical concerns. I suppose you could tie this to neutrality, but in a wider sense you can to almost any ending. In practice, confucianism was not deistic itself, but rather considered the directly god oriented practices to be another focus than the purpose of its ideology. Leading some Christians who came to the east unsure whether it qualified as a competing religion or not. The this-worldly concern of Confucianism rests on the belief that human beings are fundamentally good, and teachable, improvable, and perfectible through personal and communal endeavor especially self-cultivation and self-creation. Unlike taoism's rejection of the importance of society however, confucianism focused heavily on it. Saying that life was improved by a properly ordered society. And that while people have internal goodness you need to bring it out through cultivation, as opposed to taoism saying the opposite almost. He even added in a directly cultural element to this. There were two forms of “correct” in confucianism. Morally correct, and culturaly correct. It was realized that these might conflict. But culturally correct changes over time. It was admitted that culture had different states and needs, but that you existed inside of it and so had to move in tune with it. But that likewise you can and should change it to align it so that it is not morally incorrect. But great importance was placed on designing rites and culture for people's use. There's no objectively correct culture, but within a culture it is correct to comply to some sense, and part of objective correctness is making a culture that provides stability and order. Neo-Confucianism was an attempt to create a more rationalist and secular form of Confucianism by rejecting what they saw as the superstitious and mystical elements of Taoism and Buddhism that had influenced Confucianism during and after the Han Dynasty. Although the Neo-Confucianists were critical of Taoism and Buddhism, the two did have an influence on the philosophy, and the Neo-Confucianists borrowed terms and concepts from both. However, unlike the Buddhists and Taoists, who saw metaphysics as a catalyst for spiritual development, religious enlightenment, and immortality, the Neo-Confucianists used metaphysics as a guide for developing a rationalist ethical philosophy. As a social and ethical philosophy it used metaphysical ideas, some borrowed from Taoism, as its framework. The philosophy can be characterized as humanistic and rationalistic, with the belief that the universe could be understood through human reason, and that it was up to humanity to create a harmonious relationship between the universe and the individual. The rationalism of Neo-Confucianism is in contrast to the mysticism of the previously dominant Chan Buddhism. Unlike the Buddhists, the Neo-Confucians believed that reality existed, and could be directly understood by humankind, without need for intuitive spiritual grasping. "But the spirit of Neo-Confucian rationalism is diametrically opposed to that of Buddhist mysticism. Whereas Buddhism insisted on the unreality of things, Neo-Confucianism stressed their reality. Buddhism and Taoism asserted that existence came out of, and returned to, non-existence; Neo-Confucianism regarded reality as a gradual realization of the Great Ultimate. Buddhists, and to some degree, Taoists as well, relied on meditation and insight to achieve supreme reason; the Neo-Confucianists chose to follow Reason." Note that the word reason here is the same word as li, used for one japanese name for the great will, that being the great reason / li. Implying an ultimately logical basis behind the megaten world. New Confucianism. In the 1920s, New Confucianism, also known as Modern Neo-Confucianism, started developing and absorbed the Western learning to seek a way to modernize Chinese culture based on the traditional Confucianism. It centers on four topics: The modern transformation of Chinese culture; Humanistic spirit of Chinese culture; Religious connotation in Chinese culture; Intuitive way of thinking, to go beyond the logic and to wipe out the concept of exclusion analysis. Adhering to the traditional Confucianism and the Neo-Confucianism, the Modern Neo-Confucianism contributes the nation's emerging from the predicament faced by the ancient Chinese traditional culture in the process of modernization; Furthermore, it also promotes the world culture of industrial civilization rather than the traditional personal senses. Gods Tian, commonly translated as "Heaven" or "Sky", but philologically meaning the "Great One", "Great Whole", is a key concept in Confucianism. It denotes the source of reality, the cosmos, and nature in Chinese religions and philosophies. The Confucians mean by Tian and li (order) something similar to what the Taoists mean by Tao to some extent. However, heaven was seen as a world spirit directly, unlike tao. This idea is not unique to confucianism and existed in some other chinese philosophy, but for confucianism it was a big part. Obviously once again you ca tie it to an idea of the great will. Confucious saw tian as both an abstract spirit, and a principle of order. It was what gave people morals and order, and emanated sentient gods. And confucious saw himself not necessarily as a prophet of it directly, but as someone who learned of it, and indirectly realized how it worked, and was pushed by it to teach people. And operated by its will. (So it wasn't quite as deistic as claimed, but all the same.) And believed it would protect him from death til he was done. It is a more pantheistic idea of god though, and its will is more abstract than a direct mind. The term tian shows up directly in dsj, in the title of the new final area, with tian being the term they translated to empyrean in english for empyrean ascent. What exactly it is meant to be is ambiguous, due to not looking like a heavenly area however. Despite being the place that some law aligned figures are residing. So regardless the concept of tian is still being associated loosely with law. Li is a classical Chinese word which is commonly used in Chinese philosophy, particularly within Confucianism. Li does not encompass a definitive object but rather a somewhat abstract idea and, as such, is translated in a number of different ways. Originally used to refer to a sacrifice or rite, it later became used to refer to the underlying reason and order of nature as reflected in its organic forms. It may be translated as "rational principle" or "law." It was central to Zhu Xi's integration of Buddhism into Confucianism. Zhu Xi held that li, together with qi, depend on each other to create structures of nature and matter. The sum of li is the Taiji. Human agency participates in the ordering of the universe by Li ('rites'). There are several Chinese definitions of a rite, one of the most common definitions is that it transforms the invisible to visible; through the performance of rites at appropriate occasions, humans make visible the underlying order. Performing the correct ritual focuses, links, orders, and moves the social, which is the human realm, in correspondence with the terrestrial and celestial realms to keep all three in harmony (note the neutral sounding tone of this). This procedure has been described as centering, which used to be the duty of the Son of Tian, the emperor. But it was also done by all those who conducted state, ancestral, and life-cycle rites. Daoists also engaged in similar practices. In apocalypse, in the japanese version the axiom is refered to as the great li / reason. Implying it as a kind of ordering structure of reality. In nocturne any ordering structure that a new world was based on was also referred to as li. Dao is used as a word by confucians too, but it is not given much metaphysical significance. It basically means way or order to construct society. They also use it in the phrase way of heaven, but this is used as little more than a way to point out that heaven teaches people things. It didn't have much significance. Other gods (shem) were assumed to exist, and it was said that it was important to pray to them. But they were not a focus. Confucious himself was apparently a major ritual master however. Note that to him, ritual and culture were lumped together. Rituals were a form of culture. Not objectively correct, but important to have and do. Mandate of heaven is an important Confucian idea though. But basically mandate of heaven specifically means that a just top leader or emperor has the right to rule as given by heaven. But this conforms to their proper rulership. If they do it wrong, it is instantly revoked, and they no longer have the right to rule. Even if they were previously given the mandate through proper rulership. And people occasionally saw natural disasters or famine as a sign of bad rulership, and that they should depose the ruler. This is interesting in terms of smtII, because a literal version of it is shown with the center. In that they, by being bad rulers even though they were angels of god literally lost the favor of yhvh, and constructed a false yhvh to tell them they were right. And ironically explains a semi eastern idea of angels in general. The messians are even the main lawul religion, yet in II the entire church was more or less forsaken for ruling badly. Explaining how law works in general. In that its not just order that matters, but it being used properly. Improper order is cause to disrupt it. This is cranked up to 11 with the ending which adds a meta layer to this. Satan judges that even yhvh is functioning as a bad ruler, and so needs to be deposed. So there's no limit to the mandate as seen in this logic. “heaven” in confucianism is more of an abstract principle, corresponding to the great will, or god in the “wider” sense anyways. In the added scene in II, zayin realizes that God does not have just one face, and then yhvh is just another face that can be assessed to see if its working properly. Ethics Ethics. There's not much of particular note to say about it aside from this. It was a general building up state philosophy. It did emphasize virtue, and said that the state's authority comes from properly functioning to get the favor of heaven. The most important part are its role ethics. Basically it thought ethics was summed up in 5 pairs of roles. These were based on the concept of filial piety and family relations, often seeing rulers like a figure analogous to a father. (1) ruler and subject; (2) father and son; (3) elder brother and younger brother; (4) husband and wife; and (5) friend and friend. All but the last were seen as hierarchical. And it has been criticized for being a lot of the problems with asia today. Aside from the sexism which is a given of the times, its noted that it enshrines hierarchy into the very core of morality. Making people Focus on this, and their interplay within it more than anything else. Especially since only one single role was not about hierarchy. Likewise, there is little to no no respect for outsiders. Despite being about your relation with a family or group, There is no way to refer to the public at large. Making it very collectivist within a group, but individualist in terms of groups. With the groups being hierarchical on the inside. Called vertical collectivism, as opposed to more egalitarian horizontal collectivism. An interesting thing to note is that despite one's first intuition be to compare this kind of social organization as law, the games treat this as more chaotic. People often mistake chaos for literally people not caring about groups at all, but this isn't true. Note that a feature of chaos is “War” which implies groups going to war. And in the first game there's a chaotic dictator representing imperial japan, and in II lords ruling over cities in the abyss. In IV you become a new king. Chaos is also represented via (kind of) meritocracy and steep hierarchy that you seek to move up in. But which just exists and you can move in freely in proportion to what you deserve. So confucianism has some chaotic elements in this sense, in terms of leading to ingroup association. Obviously it is not one to one, but this more particularist and ingroup focused mentality leans more to chaos and away from laws in game. Doubly due to the hierarchical tone. Obviously you shouldn't take any one line of thought too far. Since in practice they wanted to make an ordered society. And wouldn't have been anything like as chaotic as seen in game. But do give an indication of some of the east asian lines of thought that are being lumped under chaos, even if indirectly. Confucianism considers most morality to be heavily hierarchical, based on the relations between particular individuals, and the duties the higher and lower individuals have to eachother. These roles having to do with various inter-family roles, and the relation of people to their sovereign. While chaos' form of hierarchy is not identical to this, in an interview they talk about how chaos is in some ways certain eastern ideas taken to an extreme, whereas law is certain western ideas taken to an extreme. Since they are talking about among other things the asian focus on ingroup and hierarchy, this means a basis in confucianism. Meritocracy. He emphasized a virtue based meritocracy, arguing that people should get their positions in proportion to their virtue, not their relation to others. Which corresponds to any alignment really. All of them emphasize the annoyance of people in rigid structures who are useless there. Though he did emphasize virtue over power. Which can be argued to be a little anti chaos. Virtuous leaders were seen as inspirations for those lower down. Which resembles both law and chaos. Confucianism had sages as well, though officially they just meant wise man who properly understood and related with heaven. In practice people assumed they had powers as well, however. And people deified Confucius over time too, and tried to make Confucianism more explicitly religious.